Eastern Illinois Upsets Arkansas In Extras

Share this:

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Eastern Illinois Upsets Arkansas In Extras

FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM)- The Razorbacks are hosting Eastern Illinois for a three-game homestand. The Hogs defeated the Panthers Friday 5-2, but Sunday proved to be a harder challenge Arkansas fell to Eastern Illinois 10-8 in the 12th inning, giving the Panthers their first win of the season.

It was a day of firsts for both teams Saturday. For Eastern Illinois they snagged their first win of the season in the most unlikely of places, and it also marked the first career win for the Panthers Head Coach Jason Anderson .

For Arkansas it was their first game of the season to go into extras (12-innings) and for Arkansas reliever Zach Jackson received his first loss of the season.

“You know it was kind of sloppy today,” said Zach Jackson about the loss. “We had four or five errors and the pitching wasn’t great either.”

EIU bats came alive early, Dane Toppel led off the first inning with an infield single. He found himself in a scoring position after stealing second base. Demetre Taylor and Jason Scholl put the Panthers on the board with and RBI single each. Hunter Morris got a RBI bunt to give the Panthers a early 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the second inning Arkansas’s Jake Arledge tied things up 3-3 with a solo home run.

Arledge got his second home run in the bottom of the seventh with a single run giving the Hogs a 8-7 advantage. The Panthers would not give up, Chad Spanberger sent the game into extras with a pinch hit home run to tie the game 8-8 in the bottom of the ninth inning sending it into extra innings.

The Panthers scored two runs in the 12th, EIU’s Jason Scholl got a lead off home run against Zach Jackson sealing the win against the Hogs.

“I was really disappointed,” said Arkanasas Head Coach Dave Van Horn on the upset. “We played pretty good defense for our last six, seven, nine games, really the whole season and then it kind of blew up on them today you know that’s the way it goes.”

The Razorbacks get a chance at redemption Sunday. They play EIU again in Baum at 1:00 p.m.